


Five modern follies

by LadyRhiyana



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff with just a little bit of angst but nothing painful I promise, Friends With Benefits, Happy(ish), Renaissance Faires, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, shadows of the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 11:52:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19106548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRhiyana/pseuds/LadyRhiyana
Summary: 5 ways Jaime and Brienne might find each other in modern Westeros.Featuring: a Renaissance Faire; Jaime in a sweaty white shirt; tropical paradise!Tarth; friends with benefits, and time travel and a fix-it.





	Five modern follies

**Author's Note:**

> It's just ticked over into winter where I am. I needed something to cheer me up, so please enjoy some happy (or at least happyish) modern AU ficlets.

**

**1\. Renaissance Faire**

**

Great banners of many-coloured and –sigilled silk snapped and flew in the wind. A hubbub of voices rose into the air, laughing and calling and shouting. The crowd was dressed in an eclectic mixture of mediaeval costumes and modern-day jeans and t-shirts; Brienne could see people wearing the colours of all the great houses: Stark, Baratheon, Targaryen, Lannister, Tyrell and Tully. Music and singing came from all around; Brienne thought she could recognize at least some of them: The Bear and the Maiden Fair; the ballad of Jenny of Oldstones; the haunting strains of The Rains of Castamere.

On the 500th anniversary of the fateful Tourney of the Hand, the twenty-fifth annual Westerosi Renaissance Faire had descended on the very plain outside King’s Landing where the tourney had once been held. 

“Isn’t this great, Brienne?” her brother asked. “Look at all these people!” Galladon was wearing a surcoat dyed rose and azure and quartered with the crescent moons and sunbursts of Tarth. He had always loved the old tales.

Brienne was wearing jeans, sturdy boots and a long-sleeved shirt. “Yeah,” she said, but with much less enthusiasm. “Just great.” 

“Oh come on,” Galladon said, laughing. “You know you love this stuff, Bri. Let’s go watch the jousting.” 

But as they made their way through the crowd, Brienne began to feel as though something was – off. She began to see flickers out of the corner of her eye, men and women not in carefully made costumes but in genuine hard-worn breeches and tunics, to hear snatches of coarse laughter and cursing and conversation in archaic accents. Suddenly the voice of the crowd was louder, the comments cruder, the laughter drunken and rowdy. 

A woman stumbled out into their path, hair blowsy and tangled, her bodice undone and her breasts spilling out for all to see. A man with rotting black teeth grabbed her around the waist and pulled her against him, laughing uproariously. 

But then Brienne blinked, and they were gone. The people around her were dressed in modern-day clothes and lovingly made costumes and spoke with familiar accents and familiar turns of phrase. If there were women dressed as wenches, their breasts were not spilling out in defiance of public nudity regulations. 

“Did you see –” she turned to Galladon, frowning, but he was headed towards a cordoned-off field, where rows of white fencing had laid out two long strips of level grass: the lists, where two mounted knights – or at least dedicated and skillful re-enactors – were currently thundering towards each other with twelve-foot lances tucked under their arms. The crowd was roaring with delight and anticipation; they had packed the viewing stands and were lined three or four deep in the standing area, and the atmosphere was electric. 

At the far edge of the crowd there was a small clearing. Here, she experienced the same strange sense of disorientation, of seeing flickering ghosts from the corner of her eye; it seemed as though there was a golden-haired man standing in the clearing, dressed in white-scale armour with a sheathed sword by his side and a snowy white cloak falling from his shoulders. 

She blinked, and suddenly the golden-haired man was wearing blue jeans and a crimson t-shirt.

He looked up as they approached, and Brienne had time enough to feel her heart sink within her – he was easily the most attractive man she’d ever seen. She would have turned around then and there, but Galladon forged on, oblivious. 

“Hi,” her brother said, smiling with blithe, open charm. “Mind if we join you?” 

Closer to, she could see that the stranger’s crimson t-shirt was emblazoned with the gold lion rampant and the words “Hear me roar!” He nodded politely at Galladon. “Hi,” he said, but his bright green eyes were fixed on Brienne with – wonder and bemusement. 

Recognition.

Galladon smirked. “I’m Galladon Tarth, and this is my sister, Brienne.” He stretched out his hand. 

The stranger clasped his hand in turn. “Jaime Lannister,” he said.

** 

**2\. Bartender AU**

**

It was Friday night, and Jaime was working behind the bar at a downtown club. 

It was hot and noisy and the crush of people was almost overwhelming. His hair was curled with sweat, his white t-shirt sticky and clinging, and the flashing lights and the heavy, driving beat were starting to make him twitch. 

When the time came for his short break, he slipped outside eagerly. 

** 

It wasn’t much cooler outside, but at least it was much less noisy. He leaned back against the brick wall, closed his eyes and breathed out slowly. 

With practiced ease, he fumbled a cigarette out of its packet and slipped it between his lips, reached into the pocket of his skin-tight jeans for a lighter. 

It had been almost three years since he lost his hand.

“Crowded in there tonight,” Ygritte, one of the other bartenders said. 

He blinked lazily and hummed in absent agreement. 

“You’re a shit bartender, Jaime,” she said. “You’re lucky most of the patrons are too busy mooning over you to notice.”

Jaime only laughed. 

He was a shit bartender. 

The more complicated drinks were difficult to manage with only his left hand. Shouting crowds and strobing lights and shadows sometimes triggered him. Even during the slower periods, he had no patience for customers wanting to share all their woes. 

“Why are you doing this?” Ygritte asked. 

He took a long drag on his cigarette, felt the acrid burn of it. Why _was_ he doing this? He certainly didn’t need the money. 

“Why not?” he replied. 

** 

He went back inside. Drinks and patrons started to blur together; they all seemed to be well-dressed young men and beautiful women, mostly in their 20s, all the same with their straightened or curled hair and their smoky eyes, leaning on the bar trying to draw his eyes down to their charms. 

He didn’t look. 

And then _she_ caught his attention. Military posture, straw-like hair cut short and messy, wearing plain jeans and a white dress shirt. Her arms and shoulders were solid with muscle, and her eyes – bare of any make-up or embellishment – were an astonishing blue. 

She ordered one sensible drink and two fruity cocktails, and when he slid the drinks across to her, her eyes dipped down to his forearm, the sleeves rolled up to his elbow. She saw the tattoo, recognized the insignia.

He waited for the inevitable question: _Is that a real Kingsguard tattoo?_

If she asked, he would smile charmingly and give her his usual answer: _I was 15 and stupid. I regretted it the next morning, but by then I was stuck with it._ It was nothing but the truth after all. 

But she said nothing. 

**

**3\. Bush pilot AU**

**

Brienne’s little beachside bar was popular with tourists and locals both. She served good food, exotic little cocktails and cold drinks, always hired local bands for live music, and had a little dance floor for the more romantic couples. 

Most nights, Jaime sat at the end of the bar and kept her company. Perpetually unshaven, his golden stubble streaked with grey, he wore garish shirts and woven leather bracelets and his shaggy hair was always in need of a cut. But instead of looking like a drunken beach bum, he always looked like a dishevelled golden god who’d just rolled out of bed. 

Most nights, he _had_ just rolled out of bed. 

Hers. 

** 

Jaime was a bush pilot. The governing council of Tarth had hired him – and his scrappy little modified seaplane – to fly mail, cargo and passengers between Tarth and the mainland. He sometimes supplemented his income by taking tourists on tropical joyrides. 

If anyone ever asked, he told them he used to be a military pilot but was deliberately vague on the details; he said that he lost his hand in a helicopter crash. 

It was probably even true. But there was so much that Jaime never spoke of. 

He lived in the spare room above her bar. His seaplane was moored at her little jetty. He spent his days flying and his nights in her bar and in her bed. 

On Sundays, if the weather was fair, Brienne took him out on her boat. They brought their fishing rods and a picnic lunch, and went out to one of the little islets in the Straits of Tarth; Brienne liked to lie entwined with him, her hand over his heart as he stroked his left hand over her back. 

Some part of Brienne was still waiting for Jaime to drift away from Tarth just as easily as he had drifted onto it. 

**

**4\. Friends with benefits**

**

Jaime woke with a smile, feeling lazy and sated. The morning sun poured through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows; beside him, Brienne stirred, her blue eyes blinking open, a warm smile curving her lips. 

“Good morning,” he said. 

Brienne pressed closer, humming as she kissed him – a light, good morning kiss, and then another, and another, before pulling away, laughing, as he tried to tug her down into something more thorough. They mock-wrestled for a few moments, Brienne giggling as he growled and pretended to bite her, until she finally pinned him down and had her wicked way with him. 

** 

An hour or so later, freshly washed and properly clothed, they ate breakfast out on the sunlit balcony, enjoying the view over Lannisport harbour. It was a perfect day. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, and the wind was fair. The water was calm and perfect for Jaime’s small yacht, moored just beneath them; his home was right on the waterfront, commanding a magnificent view of the great arching bridge.

“Let’s go sailing,” Jaime said. “We can have a picnic.” He poured himself a glass of freshly-pressed orange juice and spread butter on a thick slice of toast with his single hand.

Brienne regarded him with a bemused, wondering look, as if she wasn’t quite sure that he was real. 

“Jaime,” she said, “you do realise that it’s Wednesday.” 

He made an enquiring noise. 

“I have to go to work,” she elaborated. 

“I’m sure your boss won’t mind if you miss one day,” he said. 

“Tyrion may not mind, but your father –”

Looming behind his Lannisport house and his perfect view of the harbour was the vast expanse of Casterly Rock. It cast a shadow over everything, including Jaime’s slow, careful attempts to court Brienne, surely the wariest woman he’d ever met. 

There were more important things than money. Money and power had not stayed the blade that had severed his hand.

“Jaime,” Brienne said cautiously, “you know this is just a –” She hesitated. 

He drew in his breath. He’d been stabbed, once, by an Ironborn warlord; the body armour had only stopped the knife, not dulled the pain of the blow. Brienne’s words were more painful still. 

“A booty call?” he said mildly. “That’s all right. I don’t mind if you only want me for my body.”

She looked exasperated. “I don’t just want you for your body. But – I mean,” she gestured to the harbour below them, to his million-dragon house, to Casterly Rock itself. “You’re you, and I’m –”

He put down his butter knife and looked at her. “You’re what?” he asked, his voice very even. 

“I’m only me,” she replied, sadly. 

“That’s all I want,” he said.

** 

**5\. Time-travel & fix-it AU**

**

Brienne was lost. 

The fighting had spilled into the Westerlands after King’s Landing fell, Queen Cersei fleeing west with her remaining followers, seeking the final refuge of Casterly Rock. The combined forces of the Dragon Queen and the North had given chase along the Goldroad, quickly overwhelming the remaining strongholds still loyal to the Lannisters. They had almost reached the vast, awe-inspiring bulk of the Rock when a blizzard blew up, and in the unfamiliar surroundings Brienne was separated from her men. 

She stumbled blind through the flying snow and sleet, leading her horse through knee-deep snow-drifts and over treacherous patches of ice. Long, long hours she walked, until she saw lights ahead, felt a vast looming presence, and forced herself to one last burst of effort. 

The lights burned golden and steady in the snow-blurred night. They were not torches, nor even lanterns; she puzzled over them for only a moment before she saw a great wooden door, reinforced with bands of solid iron and carved with rearing lions. 

Desperately she banged on the door, hammering with the last of her fading strength, until with a long, groaning squeal it swung open, slowly and ponderously – 

Jaime stood in a pool of light and warmth, blinking at her. 

She cried out, a low, gasping exclamation, and fell against him, at the last of her strength. She leaned drunkenly against his chest, her eyes closed, and she let him support her the rest of the way into the castle. 

If, in some dim part of her, she wondered why he didn’t smell of sweat and leather and steel, if she wondered why he was clean-shaven and unarmed, the greater part of her was too cold and exhausted to care. 

** 

In the morning she woke to find him watching her in fascination. 

She blinked stupidly at him in turn: he looked – younger. Less careworn. 

He was clothed very oddly – not armour or mail or even boiled leather, not a surcoat, but a strangely designed tunic and breeches, and he had no sword-belt and no sword, not even a dagger by his side. 

His hair was thick gold, and curling, and he had two hands. 

If she didn’t know him so well, the topography of his handsome face, the ironic curve of his mouth and the peculiar green of his eyes, she might have thought him another Lannister cousin. 

But it was Jaime. Somehow, impossibly, it was Jaime. 

“They said that you died in the Red Keep,” she breathed. She could not help herself; she reached out to touch his cheek, pressed her brow to his and breathed in his warm scent. 

She had known him so intimately in Winterfell, had lain entwined with him for three blissful weeks out of time. The darker male scent of him was still the same, but some part of her knew – 

“You’re not him, are you,” she asked quietly.

“No,” he said. 

**

His name was indeed Jaime Lannister of Casterly Rock. 

But this was a Casterly Rock nearly five centuries after her own time. Westeros was at peace, and the Lannisters were no longer ruthless tyrants; this Jaime was gentler, less brutal and callous than the Jaime she had known. 

Some things had not changed. He had still joined the Kingsguard, though it was vastly changed from the seven great knights of her time; he had still killed a mad king. His smile was still was still razor-sharp, but he had none of Jaime’s cruel bitterness.

He’d been born a twin, he said, but she had died very young. His younger brother was far cleverer than him, and his mother and father were loving and proud. 

He still looked on Brienne with wondering desire, but without the weight of their shared history. 

** 

Two weeks, she stayed with this strange, unfamiliar Jaime. Casterly Rock of this time was mostly empty; he called it a gigantic white elephant, a term she did not understand and he did not explain, and said that it was more convenient for their family to live in Lannisport or King’s Landing. 

The Lannisters of this time had become very much like the Iron Bank, dealers in currency and wealth. Their power lay not in armies but in influence, and there was no need for an impregnable mountain stronghold. 

“Still,” Jaime said, “it’s ours and we mean to keep it. When I left the Kingsguard I took up residence here as the caretaker.”

Sometimes, in her deepest, most secret imaginings, she had thought of herself in Casterly Rock, with Jaime by her side – but not like this. 

He showed her around the opulent halls and corridors, all crimson and gold and rearing lions. He showed her the long portrait gallery, hung with paintings of Lannisters past and present, all golden haired, green eyed and beautiful. He showed her the Hall of Heroes, where the first ruling Queen of Westeros lay – but not her notorious brother-lover, the Kingslayer. 

No one had ever found his body, he said. 

“I was named for him, you know.” And then, “Oh,” he said. “Oh, I’m sorry –”

“No,” she said tightly. “No, it’s alright, I knew that he was – gone. It’s just – for me it was only weeks ago. And you’re so like him, and yet so different.”

Perhaps inevitably, they fell into bed. 

He was gentler than Jaime, though less reverent. If there was no love on his part – and how could there be? – there was at least bemusement and desire. But Brienne felt as though she were using him, exorcising her own ghosts as she lay with him. 

He said that he didn’t mind. 

But eventually, she said that they had to stop. 

“Somewhere in Westeros,” she said, “there is another Brienne of Tarth. Go and find her, and be happy.” 

“And you?” he asked. 

She smiled sadly, drew his face to hers and kissed him one last time. “Jaime,” she breathed, holding him close and imagining him older, harder, with one-hand lost in her defence. “I never thought I would see you again. To have been granted this…” she swallowed. “It’s more grace than I deserve.”

He pulled back, cupped her cheek, and smiled – gently, but with a hint of irony. “You know,” he said, “they never did find his body.”

** 

Long months after his strange visitor went back to her own time, as winter eased into spring and the world grew bright and hopeful once more, Jaime went to King’s Landing to attend the 25th annual Westerosi Renaissance Faire.


End file.
